


Amity Park Ghoul

by RocketKat123



Category: Danny Phantom, Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, This is set in 2007 by the way, all the kids are seniors in high school, crossover AU, idk what this is, slightly aged up Danny
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:21:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23810746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RocketKat123/pseuds/RocketKat123
Summary: Danny paused to look up at the night sky. There weren’t many stars visible inside the city, and the sky was partially overcast. The moon was the only thing to be seen, and it was struggling weakly from behind a cloud.He usually liked looking up to the night sky in times of trouble even though there wasn’t much to see. It was oddly comforting to be reminded that his mistakes and worries were completely insignificant to such a vast universe.Except, this time as he saw the moon peeking out through the clouds, shedding a few weak silver rays down on the earth, a cold thrill of terror ran down his spine. Because as he stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, a second set of footsteps stopped, as well, just a second out of sync with his.
Comments: 41
Kudos: 140





	1. Capture

Danny walked home, his hands shoved deeply into the pants pockets of his Nasty Burger uniform. His mind drifted between how stupid he was for not bringing a jacket with him to work, and how much he needed to study for his calculus exam the day after tomorrow.

He probably wouldn’t graduate in the top ten and definitely wouldn’t be valedictorian like his sister, but he was getting by with mostly A’s—even in his college credit classes like calculus. He had good momentum to get into a decent college, get his bachelor's degree in engineering and then get his 1,000 hours of pilot-in-command time in jet aircraft. 

He should also probably get a head start on learning Russian since it was a requirement for astronauts to learn, but there wasn’t a class for it in Casper High, and Rosetta Stone was crap.

But that would all mean nothing if he failed his calculus exam. 

He probably wouldn’t fail. He was mostly being hard on himself, but he had to. He wouldn’t get his homework done or study in an appropriate amount of time if he didn’t bully himself into doing it.

Jazz would probably tell him to stop being so hard on himself, but it wasn’t like she had any room to speak. She didn’t have any friends that Danny could think of in high school, and he seriously doubted that she was living the average fun college life all the way in Yale.

He definitely envied her strict devotion to academia, though.

He sighed, releasing a large puff of fog in the cold air.

Well, he thought wryly, if the astronaut thing didn’t work out, he could always fall back on ghoul hunting.

He snorted at the thought. For as long as Danny could remember, his parents had wanted him to follow in their footsteps and become part of the GIW, the Ghoul Inquiry Wing, or more commonly known as “the Guys in White”. And strangely enough, all of the lower level officers in the governmental department did in fact wear all white uniforms. His mom and dad weren’t technically in the GIW, being hired as “freelance inquirers”, so they didn’t have to wear the GIW’s ridiculous uniforms. 

Danny never wanted to have anything to do with the GIW work—mostly because of their stupid uniforms, and because of the horror stories he heard about what they did to some of the ghouls they detained. 

Ghouls...were an interesting and sort of sad thing to think about for him. He had actually met a ghoul freshman year. She had been one of the kindly old lunch ladies in Casper High. 

Danny remembered catching her trying to lure away another student to get them alone. She quickly tried to play it off and told both high schoolers to go on their way. He didn’t really realize at the time what had happened, but as soon as he told his parents, they instantly adopted a strange light in their eyes. A light that Danny now understood meant the excitement of another hunt.

The old lunch lady wasn’t there the next day and Danny quickly figured out what must have happened. He confronted his parents about it and they gave him a brief explanation that they had caught her and delivered her to some GIW agents while she was unaware that she had been found out.

Danny knew that he shouldn’t feel sorry for a cannibalistic monster. (But she didn’t really choose to be a monster did she? How was that fair?) However, the thought of someone that had reminded him a bit of his grandmother, being tortured to death and then butchered to be examined by GIW scientists, and part of her taken to be used as a weapon against her own kind, made his stomach turn. 

He tried not to think of the Lunch Lady often.

Danny paused to look up at the night sky. There weren’t many stars visible inside the city, and the sky was partially overcast. The moon was the only thing to be seen, and it was struggling weakly from behind a cloud.

He usually liked looking up to the night sky in times of trouble even though there wasn’t much to see. It was oddly comforting to be reminded that his mistakes and worries were completely insignificant to such a vast universe.

Except, this time as he saw the moon peeking out through the clouds, shedding a few weak silver rays down on the earth, a cold thrill of terror ran down his spine. Because as he stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, a second set of footsteps stopped, as well, just a second out of sync with his.

Danny pretended like he didn’t hear them—and maybe he didn’t hear anything because it very well could have been just an echo of his own footsteps—but his heart began to hammer. If a ghoul was pursuing him, he had probably already given himself away with how loudly it was beating. 

But this part of the city was supposed to be safe. There were no disappearances, no arrests in this part of town for over five years. It was the only reason his parents let him walk home from work at night.

Amity Park didn’t have a big ghoul problem in the first place. There was only one known gang in the area, and the leader—the Warden, as he called himself—was strict about his members feeding habits. It was well known to the Amity Park GIW that he punished those that broke his rules—the biggest one being, don’t take any high profile prey.

Danny let out another long breath, trying to hide how shaky it was, and resumed his trek home. He listened carefully for the other set of footfalls, but they were either too quiet or in perfect sync with his. A string of curses passed through his mind. He should have just called Tucker for a ride, or hitched a ride with one of his coworkers. Valerie Gray got off the same time he did, and while they weren’t friends per se, he knew her from school since they had several classes together. Plus, they were basically in the same social standing in their grade, since her mom died freshman year.

She hadn’t exactly been kicked out of the A Listers, as they were usually referred to, but she had isolated herself and joylessly continued the cheer squad and gymnastics until she finally quit both in their junior year.

He tried not to think too much about her either—since her mother was killed by a ghoul.

Danny cursed quietly under his breath. This was no time to think about high school acquaintances. He needed to call his parents or—no, he couldn’t call his parents because they were half across the state looking into another string of murders by a ghoul.

They decided to trust him to take care of himself while they were gone. He was seventeen now, almost an adult! What could possibly go wrong?

He’d just have to call Tucker, or Sam. Or maybe even the police, but what if it really wasn’t a ghoul? God, that would be so embarrassing. 

But, he suddenly realized that he didn’t feel his phone in his pockets with his hands. He discreetly felt for it in his back pockets, pretending to adjust his shirt, but nope, it wasn’t there either. He must have left it at work. Well, that scratched off all three options on the now nonexistent list. Fan-fucking-tastic. 

And he couldn’t turn around and go back to get it. He was already more than halfway home. 

A turn was coming up. Danny took it slowly, glancing down the street he had just come from. There was no one there, not even a shadow.

He still wouldn’t let himself relax. He kept walking, quickening his pace. He stopped at the edge of the sidewalk as a cop car passed in front of him. He thought about flagging it down, but it was already too late; it had already turned down another street. 

He sped up to a jog.

Danny broke out into a cold sweat as he came to the stretch of deep shadow down his road. It was the last final hurdle. Danny had never realized before having to walk home for the last two days how absolutely pitch black the street became at night. The stretch had seemed ominous before even with the flashlight on his phone, but tonight it was positively terrifying. There wasn’t a single street lamp down the little residential road, and by nine o’clock most of the lights were out in the houses.

The tall brownstones loomed out of the darkness and seemed to lean over Danny, watching him, hoping for him to stumble so they could descend upon him and devour him. And he’d be gone just like that, vanished into the night, never to be heard from again.

He cursed himself. Why didn’t he just ask Valerie for a ride? Why didn’t he just call Tucker before he left, or simply not forgotten his fucking phone at work. Why, why, why?! Fucking damn it all…

Suddenly, long ropes of flesh shot out of an alley between two of the brownstones and wrapped around Danny. He couldn’t say that he was surprised. This was the inevitable conclusion to this sort of situation, but he still screamed—or tried to. All that came out was a muffled noise because one of the tendrils had wrapped around his face.

It pulled him into the space between the buildings. The tendril around his face moved away, but before he could scream, it was replaced by something else. A cloth was pressed to his face, the hand keeping it there as unrelenting as steel. This was worse, worse than being killed and eaten, because worse things happened to the people taken alive by ghouls. Danny tried not to breathe in the acrid chemical, but he began to panic.

Was this because his parents were hunters? Was this some sort of retaliation against the Amity Park GIW? What would they do with him?

Danny tried to struggle, but it was no use. All the things his parents had taught him to protect himself against ghouls were essentially useless. He was going to die—or no, something much worse would happen. His lungs screamed and he was finally forced to take in a breath. The smell burned his nose and lungs, and the darkness around him seemed to somehow get even darker. His head spun, and he felt...like…

He was falling….

…

Pain wrapped around Danny’s head like a vice, forcing him awake. He groaned softly and laid there for several seconds trying to get his bearings. He was lying on his side directly on his right arm, and it was entirely numb at this point. His other arm was at a weird angle behind his back and was starting to go numb, as well. He tried to shift his weight and bring his left arm around, but there was a kind of resistance around his wrists. He pulled at it again, and as tough plastic cut into his wrists, he realized they were being held together by zip ties. It was then that he realized, as well, he was not in his bed. Hard stone rested under him, warmed by his body heat. His heart began to beat faster, only making his headache worse

Finally, he opened his eyes. The light, no matter how little there was, stabbed his eyes as soon as they were open. With a soft gasp, he squeezed them closed again and waited until the searing pain eased before trying again, this time keeping his eyes as slits until they adjusted to the light.

The room was gray concrete on all sides with fluorescent lamps illuminating it with cold light from above. A large man, or ghoul, or whatever he was, stood at the opposite side of the room to Danny near the door. His head and shoulders were cut off from Danny’s line of sight. He raised his head as much as he could, and saw that the ghoul wore an edgy looking metal skull mask that seemed to have tinted lenses built into the eye sockets.

“Who the hell are you?” Danny wheezed under his breath. “The Terminator?” The man across the room made a displeased sigh, but didn’t respond more than that.

Danny let out a sigh of his own and lowered his head back to the ground. He closed his eyes again and waited—for what would happen next, and for his head to stop pounding again.

Finally, the heavy metal door creaked open, making Danny wince. He opened his eyes and raised his head. 

Another ghoul came in, smaller than the first, but still quite tall. He wore all white except for his black gloves and shoes, and the black shirt and tie underneath his blazer. Danny thought at first that this must be the infamous Warden, but then he remembered the accounts his parents told him about. That ghoul did wear all white, as well, but the Warden also wore a blank white mask with a black fedora. Whereas the ghoul standing in front of Danny wore a wooden mask attached to a black hood over his head, hiding even the color of his hair. The mask itself had short horns attached to the top of it, and had a grinning face painted blue. It almost looked like a Japanese oni mask, but the features were more geometric and almost a bit crude in nature.

The second ghoul glanced at Danny before turning to the Terminator. He said something that Danny couldn’t understand. At first he thought his drugged brain was mashing the words together, but it quickly occurred to him that they weren’t, in fact, speaking English. The more he listened, the more it seemed they were speaking in some sort of Slavic language. Maybe Russian, or Croatian? He cursed Casper High for not having a Russian course yet again.

Danny grunted, trying to sit up. He struggled for a bit before finally managing it. He scooted back a couple paces to lean against the wall. His arms tingled painfully from the blood rushing back into them.

The two ghouls kept talking over him even though they must know he was awake now. In fact they seemed to be in a bit of an argument. The larger one had begun to raise his voice while the one with the demon mask stayed impassive. 

Screw it. If he was going to be tortured or killed, what did subtly matter anymore? Letting out a huff, he said dryly, “Who are you guys? The Russian mafia?”

The one with the demonic mask glanced at him, but quickly resumed his conversation with the other man.

Danny spoke up again. “Interesting fashion choice—wearing all white. Do you have to get a new suit every time you kill somebody, or is there a special kind of technique ghouls know to get blood out of their clothes?”

Demon Mask said one more thing before the other guy nodded and moved towards Danny.

“Alright, whelp,” the Man in the Iron Mask said, grabbing Danny under his arm and lifting him up. Danny gritted his teeth as his head began to pound with renewed vigor.

“A little warning next time, Dr. Doom?” Danny gritted out.

The ghoul shook him slightly, before dragging Danny towards the door. “You have a smart tongue, boy. I can’t wait to cut it out.”

Danny panted, “I...hope…that’s not like...a fetish for you because—“

The ghoul opened the door and threw Danny out into the hallway. Danny’s shoulder hit the floor, then his head. Pixels flooded his vision. Danny blinked several times to clear them, but stars still twirled around his head.

The ghoul lifted up Danny. His head snapped forward and Danny was sure he was going to puke.

The ghoul behind them cleared his throat pointedly. The Terminator glanced back almost nervously before moving on, being a slight bit more mindful of his charge.

They took him to a large operating theater. Catching sight of the metal slab in the middle of the room with restraints hooked to the sides, Danny began to struggle. They were going to cut him open, take him apart and have fun doing it. Maybe they’d even make him watch.

Danny screamed and thrashed. He hit the back of the ghoul’s knee by accident, making it buckle. The ghoul grunted and Danny slipped out of his hold for a second, only to hit the hard cold ground again before being promptly picked up and thrown over the large ghoul’s shoulder.

Without any care, he was then slammed down onto the metal table. By the time his vision cleared again, he was already strapped down. A sob welled up in his throat, but he covered it with a cough. 

The two ghouls shared a brief conversation before the Terminator left through another door at the other end of the operating theater. The one in the devil mask primly put his hands behind his back and circled Danny. 

Danny watched him until he moved out of his line of sight behind him, then again as the ghoul made another circle. The silence was maddening.

“My parents will hunt you down,” Danny threatened weakly.

The man in the demon mask came to stop in Danny’s blind spot. Danny swallowed. He didn’t like it when he couldn’t see him. If the ghoul did anything, it didn’t matter if Danny could see it or not, but it was the unknowing that made it worse. He would like to at least see what his fate was before it claimed him.

Suddenly the mask was right in front of his face. Danny jumped and gasped, and the ghoul just chuckled at him. The nose of the mask was only a foot away from his own, but even up close, the eyes of the mask were dark. There was probably a kind of dark colored mesh or lense covering the eye holes, but it looked for all the world like the eyes of the mask were bottomless dark pits—or like there was nothing behind the mask at all, just darkness that went on and on forever. 

Space.

For the first time, the ghoul spoke in English, saying, “You still need mommy and daddy to do everything for you? Why don’t you hunt me down yourself?” His tone was a low growl likely affected to disguise his voice.

It was then that Danny realized the ghouls had been deliberately hiding their identity the whole time. They had kept their masks on, and the demon guy even tried to hide his voice. That would indicate that they were going to let him live. But then...what were they going to do to him?

Danny drew in a shaky breath. “Then can you at least tell me your name, so I know who I’m hunting down?” he said, trying to sound in anyway threatening but completely failing.

The ghoul let out a derisive chuckle. He took a step away from the metal slab, and said, “You may call me Plasmius.”

A moment later, another person came in, wheeling a cart in front of them. There was what appeared to be an ice cooler on the bottom shelf, but on the top shelf of the cart sat a tray full of sharp instruments, and a syringe full of a clear liquid.

The sight of the tray and its occupants were almost humorous with how stereotypical they seemed. This was like some Jack the Ripper crap. Were they going to steal his kidney, or something?

Danny let out a hysterical laugh. “This is insane. What’s next? Are you going to bring out the chainsaw? What the hell do you want from me? I mean, you’re not going to torture me, right? What would be the point in that?”

“He’s a talkative one, isn’t he?” the new person said. He was a rather short man, and Danny couldn’t tell much about his appearance because there was a cap over his head covering his hair and a surgical mask on his face, but his eyes were the signature eyes of a ghoul: red irises and black scleras.

Plasmius made a noncommittal noise. Then gestured to the tray.

“Ah, yes, right then,” the new guy said. He wheeled the cart right next to Danny. Up close he could tell that there were deep crows feet around the man’s eyes. Just going from that he was likely mid forties to early fifties.

“Can I at least know the name of who will be operating on me today?” Danny said.

The new guy chuckled. “You can call me Bert.”

“Bert” began tying a band around Danny’s upper arm, making his veins stick out. 

“So you’re a ghoul doctor?” Danny snorted. “Go figure.”

“It puts food on the table.” He chuckled to himself as if at an inside joke. “But I’m not a doctor anymore—not a licensed one anyway. I found a better gig.”

Danny said dryly, “Yikes, hate to be your patient—oh wait…”

He hissed as the ghoul suddenly stuck the needle in the crook of his elbow. “Aren’t you supposed to disinfect the skin first?” Danny said through gritted teeth as the ghoul slowly pressed the plunger of the syringe down.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

It was only seconds later that the drug started taking effect. Danny blinked as his eyelids started getting heavier. He was suddenly overwhelmed with a dazed wave of fear, and with his senses quickly eroding, he didn’t have the mind to keep it in check. He sobbed and tears began to fall into his hairline. 

“Now, now,” Dr. “Bert” said patronizingly, “it’ll all be over soon. Just count backwards from one hundred.”

Danny’s eyes fell closed.


	2. Eye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sort of a self harm warning for this chapter. Personally, I don’t consider it self harm since it wasn’t explicitly and solely just for the purpose of inflicting self harm, but there is semi explicit descriptions of it and there is a lot of blood, so if that’ll upset you please read with caution.

A car horn honked outside, and Danny jolted awake. When his heart began to settle down, he groaned and blinked sleepily. Birds chirped loudly outside, almost like they were right out his window, and the road noise seemed louder than it should. Danny should have questioned that, but in the moment it was merely hampering his ability to get back to sleep.

He sighed and opened his eyes again. The sun was already bright, filtering through his blinds. School would probably start soon.

Danny started to get up, but as he looked down at himself he froze. He was not snuggled under his covers as he should have, but more worryingly, he still had his uniform pants and shoes on, but no shirt, and there were bandages wrapped around his chest.

His heart began to beat faster.

Fuzzy memories of last night came back to him. He remembered the dread, the footsteps, and finally the capture. But it was all so surreal, that it couldn’t be more than a dream. It had to be dream because that was the only thing that made sense. Why would ghouls take him and then...do what to him?

He sat up and swung his feet over the side of his bed. He hesitantly pulled back the corner of the bandage. There was the smell of stale blood. His blood. It reddened the inner side of the bandages, but didn’t soak through. 

And on his chest was a row of black stitches.

His breaths now coming out as panicked gasps, he jumped up from his bed and ran to the upstairs bathroom across the hall from his bedroom. He pulled down the bandages to see a half foot long pink slash down his chest, running from the bottom of his sternum almost to his collarbone. The sutures bunched around the edges like the healing process had pulled them unnaturally.

He touched the bubbled stitches. Something switched off in his brain, a survival mechanism kicking in, narrowing his focus like a set of blinders for a horse, or a veil falling over his eyes. He moved in a conscious-unconscious state, watching his body move on its own as his hand reached for a pair of scissors in a basket on the counter. 

He cut away the bandages that had then almost slipped down to his waist. As the bloody gauze fluttered to the floor, he carefully started cutting and pulling out the stitches. He was about ten sutures away from being done when his hand slipped, and the tip of one of the blades went directly into his stomach. He gasped reflexively, but there was no pain and there certainly wasn’t any blood. 

The veil slowly began to lift, letting all the panic from before flood back in. Feeling half insane in that moment, he pushed harder on the scissors, and looking down at himself in the mirror, he saw that his skin barely depressed around the edge of the scissor blade. He pressed harder still, and there was still no pain, or blood, or guts as there should be. 

Danny looked up at the mirror again, and let out a sound that was somewhere between a sob and a chuckle as he saw that one of his eyes, his right eye, was the signature red and black of ghouls. 

This was a nightmare. There was nothing else it could be, but a horribly vivid nightmare. 

He pinched himself, but, of course, it didn’t work. A red eye continued to stare back at him in the mirror. He pinched himself again, for harder and longer, but he still didn’t “wake up.” Well, if a pinch didn’t do the trick then he needed something more...shocking.

Of course nothing could really hurt him in this dream, he was a ghoul after all, and just about the only weak spot on their body was their eyes. His gaze met his reflection’s again, and then he looked down at the scissors still in his hand.

He raised the scissors to his face.

What if he just… Maybe it would be enough to shock him awake.

His breath came out in sharp gasps through his clenched teeth, as he held the tip of the scissors to his eye. He had to do it. He had to wake up. It wouldn’t really hurt.

The muscles in his arm jerked in a sharp spasm, closing the distance between his eye and the blades. A scream rose in his throat as pain blossomed in his eye socket and radiated to the back of his skull and down his spine—but the scream caught on his teeth, coming out more like a growl. The scissors fell into the sink as he covered his eye with both hands. He felt hot blood dripping down his face, chin, chest. He smelled it too. It settled on his tongue like he had put a whole coinpurse of pennies in his mouth.

“Fuck!”

_What the hell did you think would happen, dumbass? You really thought this was a dream?_

He groaned and let out another curse. His other eye streamed tears down his face. The agony finally began to ease, and he could begin to hear a world beyond the blood pounding in his ears. He sighed in relief as the pain eventually reduced to a minor twinge. 

Danny lowered his hands and blinked several times to clear away the cloudy redness in his injured eye. He looked up at his reflection. There was no hideous gash in his eye. It was completely fine—or it would be if it wasn’t still red and black. 

The blood tracks on his face lightened as his tears began to wash them away. There was still blood on his chest and in the sink. It was the only remaining evidence of his stroke of idiocy. 

He took out a washcloth from the cabinet. He rinsed out the sink and wetted it, and he began to clean himself up. He finished pulling the stitches out and swept them into the trash can. 

Danny was on the edge of falling into a massive existential crisis, but that could wait a second. Hell, he’d be happy to put that off for as long as he could.

He pulled out the trash bag and took it out to the bin outside to avoid any possible suspicion. He was so out of it that he forgot to put a shirt on before going outside.

He only realized his mistake as he walked through his front door again. He nearly slapped himself. Ducking his head out the door and meekly looking around assured him that there was no one around to see the still relatively visible pink mark on his chest—or his still possibly visible ghoul eye.

He turned to the large, rectangular mirror by the door to see that yep, his eye was still ghoulish.

What the hell was he going to do? He couldn’t go to school like this? 

Actually, what time was it?

Danny looked at the clock hanging over the door. It read half past ten.

“Fuck!”

He had completely missed his first and second class and was on his way to missing his third. 

He flew up stairs, and quickly put on some clothes. He had no time to brush his teeth or take a shower. He was almost out the door when he remembered his eye. He muttered a string of curses as he searched around the house. He eventually found a pair of sunglasses and put them on.

Finally, he was out the door.

He ran down the street probably faster than a normal human should, but he made it to school in record time, charging in as third period let out. Huffing, he collapsed against his locker, leaning his forehead against the cold metal. If anyone was paying attention to him, they’d probably think nothing of it since being slumped in defeat was pretty standard for a Casper High student.

“Dude, you missed homeroom,” Tucker said behind him.

Danny turned around, leaning his back against the lockers, to see Sam stood beside him. Danny towered over both of them. Well, not Sam particularly. She was 5’10”, but Tucker was, unfortunately for him, stuck at 5’7”. 

Ever since a sudden growth spurt junior year, Danny towered over most people in the school and was as tall as Dash Baxter, the lead quarterback of the Casper High Varsity Football team. Dash could still kick his ass however, seeing as Danny, while he had the hight, most certainly did not have the weight to match Dash. Danny maybe weighed 160 pounds sopping wet.

Danny swallowed thickly and said, “Hey, Tuck—Sam.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Did you just get here?”

He nodded weakly. “Yeah, um, I had...morning sickness.”

Tucker snorted. “What? Like a pregnant lady?”

Danny gave him a deadpan look, even though he probably couldn’t see it under the sunglasses. “Yes, Tuck, I’m pregnant and Dash is the father.”

“Hmmm, I disapprove of your choice in men,” Tucker muttered disappointedly.

“For real though, what made you so late?” Sam asked, looking at him shrewdly. “Also, what’s up with the shade’s.” Danny batted her hand away as she reached for them.

He adjusted the glasses self consciously. “Well, speaking of Dash, he gave me a black eye yesterday and I’m trying to hide it.”

Sam’s eyebrows pinched with either concern or anger. “Let me see it,” she said, reaching for his sunglasses again.

Danny darted out of her reach. “Uh, no, it-it’s really bad, trust me you don’t want to see it.”

“Actually, now I wanna see it,” Tucker said. Danny gave him a betrayed look.

Sam caught him by surprise, practically tackling him, and snatched away the sunglasses. Danny yelped, but instead of the shocked and horrified expressions he was expecting from his friends, Tucker just raised an eyebrow, and Sam glared.

“Liar,” she said, crossing her arms.

Danny blinked. “What?”

She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Your eye is fine.”

“O-oh. Okay…”

“Do you think this is funny or something? Because if so, _I’m_ going to give you a black eye.”

Danny held up his hands. “Okay, okay, you got me. I...have a hangover…” He suddenly clutched his head to support his claim. “Yeah, that’s why I slept in.”

Both of his friends gave him skeptical looks. Danny was incredibly boring—or at least he thought so. He had never even thought of stealing from his parents liquor cabinet, and Sam and Tucker both knew it.

“How much did you have?” Sam asked.

“Uh, whole bottle of wine. It was at the back of the cabinet, so hopefully nobody’ll notice. I swear I tried to stop after a few glasses,” he said, hoping the extra details would make his story believable enough.

Tucker tutted and shook his head. “Danny, for shame. You know you shouldn’t drink while you’re pregnant.”

Danny groaned and put his face in his hands, but he couldn’t help smiling. “What the fuck, Tucker?”

He suddenly felt a small pang in his eye, something he hadn’t noticed before. His heart sped up.

Keeping one hand over his face and his right eye closed, trying to play it off as lingering exasperation, he held out his other hand. “Can I please have my glasses back now? These lights are killing me.”

Sam huffed and slapped the pair of sunglasses into his palm. “You know, the shades might work out for a couple of the teachers, but Lancer isn’t going to allow this.”

“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” Danny said as he put his glasses back on.

Mr. Lancer taught all four grades of English—not by himself of course, but it meant that technically a student could have him as their English teacher for all four years of high school, which Danny nearly had. The only year he hadn’t had Mr. Lancer as his teacher was junior year, when he had Mrs. Kripke.

So Danny knew quite well how strict Lancer was. But hopefully...he could figure something out. Or maybe just skip the class. It was his sixth period class and he already had seventh and eighth free. He could just go home and chill for an extra 45 minutes before he had to go to work—or have an existential crisis, whichever. 

But the problem was, English IV was one of the classes he actually needed to show up to. English was never his strong suit, (ironic since it was his native language and he intended to learn Russian. How the hell was he ever going to learn to read Cyrillic if his own language eluded him?) and senior year was no different. He was making a B-, per usual.

Screw it, like he said to Sam, he would cross that bridge when he came to it.

The warning bell rang. They all said their goodbyes and hurried on their way.

Danny ducked into Mrs. Bright’s class and quickly took a seat. He felt eyes on him and heard whispers aimed at him.

“Look at Mr. Tough Guy.”

“Probably got punched in the eye. You know Dash…”

“Could be trying to hide that he’s high…”

He was about to send them a look, maybe tell them if they were going to talk about him behind his back they should do it quieter, but he realized with a start that he really shouldn’t be able to hear them anyway.

Mrs. Bright entered the room, closing the door behind her, as the final bell rang. She instantly spotted Danny, of course, but as he got out his notebook and seemed to be ready to pay attention, she turned her gaze from him and let it slide. She was suddenly his new favorite teacher.

…

The cafeteria food was absolutely disgusting. Well, it was always disgusting, but at least it was edible—usually. Danny wanted to cry, or scream or something as he forced himself to choke down the slimy bite he had mistakenly taken. Finally, it rolled down his throat, and he could breathe again.

He looked up to see that Sam’s eyes were on him from across the table. She raised an eyebrow. She must have seen his struggle. Of course she saw. She practically sees everything. Tucker was about as oblivious as him, but Sam had the eyes of a hawk.

“Still feeling a little sick?” she asked.

Danny took in a breath, trying to get his stomach to stop doing somersaults. “Yeah...I, uh, I guess I am.”

“Then can I have your meatloaf?” Tucker asked with an already full mouth. Danny pushed his plate over to him, to which Tucker gave a triumph little hum.

“Could you at least take those ridiculous glasses off while we’re eating?” Sam asked.

“Um…” Danny pretended to adjust his glasses, using the palm of his hand to create a mirror effect on the inside of the lense. From what he could see, his eye looked normal. “Okay,” he said with a sigh, and slid them off.

“Should I skip sixth period?” he asked.

Sam and Tucker shared a look. Sam said, “You already skipped your first three classes. Kinda pushing it.”

“I didn’t skip those classes,” Danny protested. “I missed them. There’s a difference. I didn’t choose to not go to them.”

“Are you still sick?” Tucker asked.

His stomach did another somersault. “Yeah, kinda.”

“Do you think you’ll be able to work tonight?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe not.” Danny laid his head down on the table as his stomach started to rebel in earnest.

“Dude, you don’t look so good,” Tucker said, looking genuinely concerned. “Maybe you should just call in and stay at home.”

“I don’t have my phone. Forgot it at work yesterday,” Danny muttered against the table.

“We still have fifteen minutes in lunch,” Sam said. “Let me drive you over there and you can get your phone back and tell them in person that you’re not coming in.”

“Why am I the only one here that has a job but also doesn’t have a car?” Danny mused sourly.

“That’s a good question, but not the issue right now.”

His stomach suddenly did a massive flip, then another. Danny only half suppressed a gag. He stood up quickly and half jogged out of the cafeteria without a word to his friends. He rushed into the nearest bathroom and without checking to see if there was anyone in the bathroom with him, slammed open a stall and immediately puked into the toilet.

He dry heaved a couple times before the sickness abated. He sat down in the stall, leaning his back against the divider, not caring that he was likely getting his clothes contaminated with piss and shit and any other vile substance that could potentially be coating the floor and walls of a high school boy’s restroom.

There was a knock on the stall door. “Hey, Danny you alright in there?” Tucker said.

“God, no,” he wheezed.

“Yeah, figured. Sam’s here too, by the way. She’s standing in the doorway.”

“Hey,” Sam deadpanned.

“Why don’t you let one of us take you home? Seriously, man.”

“You mean let _me_ take him home,” Sam piped up from the doorway again. “Your sixth period is all the way across the school from the parking lot. You won’t be able to make it on time if you take him.”

“Do I have a choice in this?” Danny asked weakly.

“No,” both Tucker and Sam said at the same time.

…

“Let this be a lesson,” Sam said.

Danny leaned his head against the cool glass of the car window. “As if you haven’t stolen alcohol from your parents,” he said.

“Yeah, but I don’t get hungover—at least never this bad.”

Danny snorted and made a small amused smile. “So it’s okay if you can handle it?”

She didn’t take her eyes off the road. “Yep,” she said, popping the ‘p’.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to take you straight home?” she asked.

He let out a sigh, his breath fogging against the window. “Yeah, I can’t just leave them without any warning. That’s a dick move. Besides, Mom’s going to call me tonight to check up on me. Don’t want her to freak out because I don’t answer.”

They got to the Nasty Burger. Sam waited in the car, but her parting words were something along the lines of, “Don’t let them persuade you into coming in this evening, or I’ll kick your ass.”

As soon as Danny got out of the car, the greasy smell of the burger joint hit him. His nose wrinkled automatically. The scent had never bothered him before, but he guessed just smelling food was bad, too. Smell and taste were virtually the same after all. 

Fighting the urge to hold his breath, he went in. Irving Burns, the afternoon manager, spotted Danny and nodded in acknowledgement before finishing up with a customer. He came out from behind the counter and met Danny off to the side. 

“Hey Danny,” he said. “You left your phone here last night.”

“That’s why I’m here—and also to say I don’t think I’m going to be able to come in this afternoon.”

“Why? Something came up?”

“A couple things, actually.” Danny rubbed the back of his neck, an old nervous habit. “I’m not feeling very well, and, uh, I’m going to need a new uniform.”

Irving frowned. “You know those things cost money, and they're not cheap. What the hell did you do to yours?”

Danny rolled his eyes. “Come on, Irving. All the employees buy their own uniform, and it’s not like it’s costing you anything out of pocket.”

“We don’t have any in your size right now. Gonna have to order one and wait a week.”

Danny sighed. “Yeah, I figured.”

“What happened to your old uniform, again?”

“I...caught a stomach bug I think. As soon as I got home last night I got really sick…and...you know.” Might as well stick to the lie he already told, or as close to it as he could get. 

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Irving quickly said. “You don’t have to go on. You could work with a smaller size as a substitute until then.”

“I guess, but I still can’t come in tonight.” Danny glanced out the window at Sam’s car parked in the lot. “And I should really get going. My friend drove me here and she needs to get back to school before lunch ends,” he said, already heading for the door to the back room.

Irving followed him. “You look fine to me. Are you sure you can’t come in?”

Danny went to the small lost and found closet. Not looking back he said, “Since my aforementioned friend threatened to beat me up if I tried to work this afternoon, yeah, I’m pretty sure.” He picked his phone off the top of a wrack.

“I really don’t think anybody else is free. Are you really sure?

“One hundred percent,” Danny deadpanned. 

He brushed past Irving and headed for the exit.

“Okay fine. Can I at least count on seeing you tomorrow?”

Danny paused, hand on the door, and looked up at the ceiling in mock thought. “Hmmm, I dunno. We’ll just have to wait and see if I feel like it.”

Irving huffed a humorless chuckle. “Real funny guy, you. I better see you tomorrow.”

Danny didn’t respond, only waving as he went out the door. He got back to Sam’s car without any more hassle. 

“You’re spending the night at home, right?” she asked as he got in the car.

“Yep. No ass kicking required.”

She started up the car and drove off. Without much conversation, he could hear the beating of her heart in the closed confines of the car. He cranked up the music until Sam gave him a look.

She dropped him off, wished him well, and then left.

Danny quickly went inside. The sounds and smells were still too much for him to all take in—especially the sounds. At least with smells, a person’s brain was hardwired to ignore them after it was there for long enough. There were still too many sounds that made their way into the house, so he went up to his room and turned on some music and blared it. 

The rest of the day was mostly spent trying to study for his exam tomorrow and pretending that nothing was wrong.

Finally, night came, and the world quieted. Danny turned down his music a couple notches out of courtesy for the neighbors.

He was doing his geography homework when his parents called. Danny startled violently, jumping to his feet and nearly overturning his desk chair. There was a twinge in his right eye, and he knew it had turned red again. As soon as his mind took over again, he let out an annoyed huff. He managed to pick up on the fifth ring before it ended.

“Hey, Danno!” Jack Fenton’s voice boomed on the other end of the line. Danny winced and held his phone a couple inches away from his face.

“Hey, Dad,” Danny answered weakly.

“How’re things going on your own, son? Got a little worried about you last night when you did pick up.”

_Well, I just got kidnapped by ghouls yesterday. I have no idea what the hell they did to me, and I’m scared out of my mind. But no biggie._

“I forgot my phone at work is all,” Danny answered. “And I’m...fine.”

“But you didn’t answer the house phone either.”

Danny felt a stab of panic. “W-well, I also crashed as soon as I got home. It was a hard day of work,” he said a little too quickly.

“Ah, I see. You know you work yourself too hard, son. You’ve got school and a job you have to go to five days out of the week. That’s like working two jobs you know! And at only seventeen!”

Thank Jesus that he wasn’t talking to his mom. She would have picked up on his stammer in a heartbeat.

“It’s for college, and I’m handling it.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re a strong young man with a strong work ethic. I’m proud of you, son.”

Danny smiled but it quickly turned into a frown. “Thanks, Dad,” he forced out.

“You’re welcome. Now, you wanna hear how the case is going so far?” his dad asked, and without waiting for an answer, he launched into a lengthy one sided conversation.

Danny mostly tuned him out, but paid just enough attention to ‘mhm’ during appropriate times.

He had the intention at first to tell his parents about missing classes when they called that night, but the longer the phone call dragged on, the more he just wanted to forget about it. Since neither of them had cellphones, he could erase the message the school sent to the home phone, and his parents would literally never know, 

There still was the matter of the school, however. He couldn’t keep wearing sunglasses to hide his ghoul eye. They were against dress code and Mr Lancer would definitely not allow them in class tomorrow. Maybe he could wear an eye patch and make up some story to go with it? Would that be too ridiculous? Nevertheless, Lancer probably would have a harder time challenging him wearing something over his eye if it were for medical reasons.

There was a drugstore a couple blocks away. It was probably still open.

But then there was the question, why did school even matter anymore? There was no happy ending for this. Space was completely unattainable, and that didn’t even matter because he might not even live to graduate if his parents found out—when his parents found out.

He was stuck.

_Do not pass GO; do not collect $200 salary._

“Danny? Are you still there, son?”

Danny startled. “O-oh, y-yeah! I’m here. Sorry. I was just thinking.”

“Got a lot on your mind?”

Danny let out a small wry chuckle. “You could say that.”

“Well, I was just saying good night. I know you’ve had another hard day of work, and you got that big test tomorrow.”

“Yeah, good night, Dad.”

“Good night, Son. Sleep tight, don’t let the ghouls bite.” Danny cringed at the altered saying his parents always used with him and his sister. 

“Oh, uh, Dad, actually hang on. I...kinda wanted to ask you something. Um, Do you know anything about a ghoul that goes by ‘Plasmius’.” 

His heartbeat sped up as there was a pause on the other side of the line. Had he somehow given himself away with that small mention of the ghoul?

“Huh, Plasmius. Well, he and his gang’ve become a pretty big deal in Milwaukee and Madison. Some reports even say that he’s gotten a foothold in Chicago. There’s some pretty big names associated with him too. He’s also suspected to have some sort of connection to Pariah Dark. What’re you asking about him for?”

Danny shrugged even though he knew his dad couldn’t see it. “It’s, uh, for an assignment, yeah, in, um, geography. It’s over recent events. I wanted to do mine over ghoul related crimes.”

“You thinking about following in your old man’s footsteps after all?” his dad said with building excitement.

Danny fidgeted with a loose thread on the tail of his shirt. “Well, maybe. But I just thought it would be a good thing to do the project on since well, you and mom do what you do.”

His dad didn’t seem to hear anything after the “maybe”. “That’s fantastic, Danno! I have to tell your mother when she gets back to the hotel!”

“Mom’s not there with you?” Danny asked a little too quickly.

“Yeah, she just went out to get some grub. She’ll be back in about ten minutes. Do you wanna stay on the line until she gets back and say ‘hi’ to her, too?”

Danny forced himself to push away his rising paranoia, and said, “No, I’d like to, but I should really get back to studying.”

“Right, right, then good night—again.”

“Good night.”

Finally, there was the clack of the phone being put back in its cradle and then the dial tone. Danny closed his phone with a sigh.

He looked back down at his homework and knew he wouldn’t be able to get it done—at least not before he squared off a couple of other things.

He quickly went downstairs and deleted the voicemail from the school off the answering machine, then headed out. 

He didn’t care if there was something lurking in the dark this time. What more could they do to him? Ending his life would almost be a mercy, because at least then his parents wouldn’t have to do it when they inevitably found out.

And then there was the question he had kept coming back to: why would they do any of this to him in the first place? What was the plan? Turn him into a ghoul some fucking how, and…then what? They just dumped him back at home. How did that factor into Plasmius’ plan—if he had one in the first place.

No, he probably did. He seemed like the kind of stereotypical evil villain that always planned his next move, and made a bunch of chess analogies to go along with it. However, whatever plan the ghoul had for Danny was probably too complex and insane for him to understand with his feeble little teenage mind.

Danny almost walked past the store because he was so deep in thought. He walked into the drugstore, the bell above the door sounding more like a gunshot than just a sharp little jingle. He tried to hide his wince. The tired looking employee behind the counter didn’t even look up from her magazine at him as he entered.

He walked around the store for a bit before he found the bandage isle. He snorted as he picked up a black eyepatch that looked like it could be used in a pirate costume. That probably wasn’t going to convince anyone. He moved onto something that looked more akin to bandaids for your eye. They were little adhesive pads that were labeled as sterile dressings for eye injuries. 

“That should be good enough.”

He couldn’t wear an eyepatch for the rest of the school year, unless he said he lost his eye or something—but people would want to see that and of course he still had both eyes. He would somehow have to get a hold on his ghoul eye, but the eyepatches might buy him a couple weeks. 

He already had a cover story for it, which wasn’t even a lie. He had poked his eye and badly scratched his cornea, but it would make a full recovery (or, already had).

Danny brought the box up to the tired looking cashier.

“Rough day?” the cashier asked, nodding to Danny’s sunglasses.

Danny snorted and muttered under his breath, “That’s an understatement.”

…

“Okay now, what the hell’s up with the eyepatch?” Tucker asked as he sat next to Danny in homeroom.

Danny itched at the edge of the pad, the adhesive annoying him. “I scratched my eye pretty badly last night.”

Tucker raised an eyebrow. “So badly that you’re moonlighting as Patchy the pirate?”

Danny snorted. “They had the black pirate eyepatches at the store. You think I should have gotten one of those instead?”

Tucker chuckled. “Yeah, could never tell you apart then. But for real, what happened?”

“I already told you.”

Tucker frowned. “Okay so…then did you go to the hospital or something?”

Danny raised his eyebrows. “Uh, no. I’m still a minor and I’m pretty sure they’d have to call my parents.”

Tucker narrowed his eyes and raised his hand, palm up in questioning. “So?” he said.

“So...I, you know, wanted to show them I could be left alone without hurting myself—like an adult,” Danny came up with quickly. “Plus, it’s really not a big deal. It’s not like I scratched my eye out. It just hurts a little bit when I blink.”

Tucker still looked unconvinced, but the bell to start class went off. Mr Arbucle came in and hushed the class. Tucker side eyed him through most of the period. When class let out Tucker followed him out and walked with him down the hall.

“You know Sam’s gonna side with me on this,” Tucker said.

Danny rolled his eyes. “What do you want me to do, Tucker? Do you really want me to go to the hospital now—a day later?”

“No, but like, don’t be dumb.”

Danny glared down at his smaller friend. “I’m not being dumb.”

“Yeah, you’ve done two really dumb things two days in a row. You’re being dumb.”

Danny sighed dramatically. 

They parted ways, Danny to geography, and Tucker to computer programming.

Danny got through two more classes before he ran into any real trouble. 

He tapped his fingers on the edge on his locker door. He frowned as he stared at the picture of him and his friends in freshman year. That version of Danny looked so happy, with not a care in the world, and so sure he was on the road to success. The poor little bastard had no idea what was coming to him.

Danny gasped and whirled around as a hand grabbed his shoulder. Dash snickered at his reaction. Danny let himself be pushed against the lockers.

“You missed most of the day yesterday, and now you come in wearing an eyepatch. I’m starting to think I’m not the only one whaling on you,” Dash jeered.

Danny snorted. “No, of course not Dash. You and I are in a monogamous whaling relationship.”

Dash’s hand fisted on Danny’s shirt and he tried to press him harder into the lockers. He got in Danny’s face and growled, “I’m getting really tired of your back talk, Fenton. You’re becoming a real snarky little shit, you know that?”

Danny felt his eye twinge. 

He quickly ducked under Dash’s arm and pulled out of his hold. Dash looked at him with shock, disbelief and indignation, as if he couldn’t believe the gall of not-so-little Danny Fenton to walk out on his usually scheduled bully session. Danny just didn’t want Dash to throw in a punch and accidentally break his hand on Danny’s stomach, because that was definitely not something that should normally happen when someone punched someone else in the gut.

And Danny didn’t want to be tempted to punch back.

“Sorry, Dash, but I’m gonna have to go. Can’t be late for another class.”

He turned around and tried to quickly walk away, but Dash of course couldn’t abide by that. 

“Hey, I was talking to you!” Dash said.

Danny ducked more out of instinctive reflex than conscious choice. Dash staggered a bit, having his balance thrown off, but he quickly recovered and whipped around. He gave Danny another look of shocked disbelief, but now there was also anger in the mix.

Danny was getting ready to run when there was suddenly a shout over the crowd. “Mr Fenton, Mr Baxter, what is the meaning of this?” 

Mr Lancer—because of course it had to be Mr Lancer—appeared in the doorway of his office. The balding teacher was also the vice principal of the school and his office—which he was in during fourth and fifth period since he didn’t have a class at those times—was only a few lockers away from Danny’s. 

The hall seemed to clear out all at once.

Mr Lancer put his hands on his hips and looked between the boys with a raised eyebrow. He did a double take as he looked at Danny.

“Mr Fenton, is something wrong with your eye?” Lancer asked.

Danny had a brief moment of panic, raising his hand to his eye to feel that the patch was still there.

“Uh, yes, sir.”

“Nothing too bad, I hope.” 

“I, uh, scratched it yesterday, but it really only hurts when I blink, hence the eyepatch,” Danny stuttered.

Mr Lancer cleared his throat. “Alright then. Get to class, both of you.”

Dash glared at Danny as he walked past him. He tried to shoulder check Danny, but the smaller teen quickly moved out of the way.

“Oh, and Danny,” Lancer said, reproach already clear in his voice, “I’m disappointed that you missed my class yesterday. I hope you feel so obliged as to attend today.”

Danny averted his gaze and rubbed the back of his neck. “I wasn’t feeling very well yesterday. I didn’t mean to skip.”

The teacher still looked skeptical but started to retreat back into his office. “I should hope that is the case,” he said before closing the door.

...

A couple hours later Danny had the same conversation about his eye with Sam that he had with Tucker—excluding the part about moonlighting as a pirate.

“Danny, are you serious? It’s only been four days since you’re parents left, and you’ve already fucked yourself up two days in a row,” Sam said ever so supportively.

“It’s not like I meant to almost gouge out my eye,” Danny protested.

“But you chose to get wasted the night before,” Sam pointed out.

Danny huffed. He hated this. He really hated lying. He hated the fear of being called out, and in this case, the two-way shame. There was the shame from lying, and then there was the shame from the lie itself. He couldn’t even lie to make himself look good. The whole situation just made him into a dunce.

“Yeah, okay,” he grumbled.

Danny looked down at his tray of food. He sighed and pushed his tray towards Tucker, which he accepted wordlessly while Sam watched with disapproval.

“And now you’re not eating.”

Danny rolled his singular eye. “Oh my god, Sam. You are being such a mom.”

She looked affronted. “If you call me a mom again, I’ll kick your ass.”

Danny threw up his hands. “Why is it whenever I do something even mildly annoying to you, you threaten to kick my ass? What has my ass ever done to you?”

She kicked his shin under the table. Danny yelped more from surprise than pain. For once, he was glad she was wearing her steel toed boots, or she might have hurt herself.

He suddenly caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Valerie walked up the isle of tables towards an empty one at the back of the cafeteria, but as she caught Danny’s gaze, she glared and suddenly veered towards Danny and his friends' table.

Danny blinked as she sat down beside him on the edge of the seat, like she had to be ready to leave at any second. One of her ringlets came loose from her headband. Glaring at both him and the unruly piece of hair, she tucked it behind her ear, and said, “Where were you yesterday? 

“Out sick,” Sam interjected. “I had to drive him home at lunch.”

Valerie barely spared the goth girl a glance.

Danny jabbed a thumb in Sam’s direction. “She did. Tucker can corroborate.”

“Hey, Valerie,” Tucker said, waving.

Valerie simply ignored him. “Two other people called in. So I was stuck alone with Nathan, and you know Burns doesn’t give a shit. AND it was busy.”

Danny winced. “Sorry Val. I really wasn’t feeling good. Who else called in?”

Valerie rolled her eyes. “Janice, and Eliot.”

Danny copied Valerie and rolled his single eye. “Oh my god, frigging Eliot. Of course. He’s almost never there. I honestly don’t know how he hasn’t gotten fired yet. Why don’t you go chew him out?”

“No, because you’ve never called in on short notice before, and I expect more from you.”

Danny threw up his hands dramatically. “Why is everyone turning into my parents?!”

Valerie looked unamused. “Whatever. What the hell happened to your eye?”

“Scratched it, hurts, that’s it.”

“Shouldn’t you have gone to the doctor or something?” Valerie said with a raised eyebrow.

“That’s what we’re saying,” Tucker exclaimed.

Valerie looked between Tucker and Sam, gauging their expressions. “Yeah, I’m not getting into this,” she said as she stood.

She turned to Danny. “I don’t care if you’re missing an eye. You better be there this afternoon because it’s Friday and it’s always packed on Fridays.”

Danny nodded and timidly said, “Yeah, I’ll—I’ll be there.”

“You better be.”

…

Danny leaned his back against the cold stucco wall of the Nasty Burger. He drew in a breath and made a face. It wasn’t much better out there than it was in the kitchen. The dumpster was only a couple yards away from where he sat at the back of the building, and the grease smell seemed to permeate through the diner’s walls.

He sighed and looked to the horizon. Bright fuchsia splashed the western edge of the sky and faded to lilac to the east. Venus was already up, just visible over the rooftops. 

He picked up a pebble that had come loose from the asphalt. He lowered his eyes as he rolled the rock idly between his fingers. 

“Star light, Star bright, the first star I see tonight,” he muttered under his breath. “I wish I may, I wish I might…” He threw the rock, producing a satisfying thunk as it hit the dumpster. “Have the wish I wish tonight.”

He rested his chin on his knees. “I wish that none of this was happening to me.”

“You shouldn’t talk to yourself.”

Danny sprang to his feet and whirled around to see Valerie. She tried to look unaffected, but the corner of her mouth twitched like she was trying to repress a smirk. 

“People’ll think you’re crazy.”

Danny drew in a breath and tried to compose himself. “Uh, yeah, I’ve heard that before.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “What’re you doing out here? Come to yell at me to get back to work?” he said playfully.

Valerie snorted. “I’m not the manager. I just came out here to check on you. Claire said you didn’t look so good when you told her to cover for you while you took a ‘smoke break,’” she said using air quotes. “I didn’t know you smoked.”

Danny rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t. I just...needed some fresh air.”

Her brows pinched almost imperceptibly. She took a couple steps closer to him rubbing her arms from the cold. Danny almost had the urge to bend down to talk to her because she was so short. She’d knock the shit out of him if he did that, though.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“Yeah, I just still feel a little sick from yesterday.”

“No, I mean just then. I heard you talking.”

Danny tensed and lowered his gaze. “So you heard that,” he muttered.

“Yep.”

“Why do you care?”

“It’s just sorta a standard question.”

Danny felt a small pang of disappointment. He didn’t know why. It wasn’t like they were friends. “Oh. So you don’t really.”

She frowned and pursed her lips. “Well, I’m not a sociopath.”

Danny’s eyes widened. “No, no, I didn’t mean...I—“ He huffed and dry-washed his face. “I’m fine.”

Valerie raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Sure, Fenton. What’s the deal?”

He sighed and leaned against the wall. “It’s not really something I can talk about.”

He wished he could tell someone, anyone, about this terrible, dead end situation, but he couldn’t because he was a literal monster. They’d hate him and be disgusted and run away to tell the authorities. Valerie would especially hate him because of what ghouls did to her family.

She seemed to see the inner turmoil on his face and nodded. “I get that,” she said quietly.

Of course she would. What she’d gone through… She couldn’t talk about it. No one could understand the pain of losing a parent unless it happened to them.

She started to turn away. “I need to get back in there. Hurry up and deal with whatever this is and get back inside,” she threw over her shoulder. “The dinner rush is about to start.”


	3. Deadman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Suicidal ideation, and of course the usual amount of blood and guts you’d expect from TG.

Danny had to force himself to get out of bed the next day, and the next, and the next after that.

_“What’s the point?”_ bounced around his head like a rubber ball. 

Eventually the hunger would set in and then what would he do? He thought about just telling his parents and getting it over with. But he didn’t want to make his parents kill their own son. And worse than that, they might try to “fix” him or hand him over for the GIW to study. 

He always reached the same conclusion: he’d just have to wait and see what happened next. And then just like a rubber ball, his thoughts always bounced back to the start.

That, of course, wasn’t the only thing on his mind. He kept thinking about Plasmius—which was just as much of a wait-and-see situation. Danny had no way to track down the ghoul, who apparently wasn’t even from the area, and even if Danny came face to face with him right then, there was nothing Danny could do to him.

Danny started to worry himself sick, the stress making his stomach and head hurt at the worst of times. His anxiety only built up further when his parents came home a week later. 

Panic crept into his gut almost as soon as he woke up the day they were scheduled to come back. He was thankful that it was a Saturday or else he would have been completely distracted during classes. 

Danny made an effort to clean up the house, washing the dishes he’d neglected for almost two weeks, taking out the trash, doing the laundry, etcetera. It helped to burn off some of pent up nervous energy, but it still didn’t keep the worried thoughts at bay.

Eventually, he ran out of things to clean and he tried to get himself to focus on a book report that was due Monday. When that failed, he resigned himself to pacing around his room like a caged animal. 

He paused and strained his ears to listen when he heard a car door close. He tried to convince himself it was a neighbor’s car, but he began to catch small snatches of conversation from familiar voices, then he heard the front door open and close.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

“Are you home, Danno?!” Jack bellowed from downstairs.

The thought to pretend he wasn’t home crossed his mind. He glanced at the cheap stick up mirror beside his door. His eye looked normal. He could just greet them and then go back to avoiding them like a normal moody teen who was definitely _not_ hiding some sort of terrible secret.

“Yeah, I’m home,” he yelled back.

He glanced back at his reflection and frowned slightly, thinking for a moment.

He was getting better at controlling his ghoul eye, but it still came out when he was particularly stressed—which he was right then. For now at least his eye looked normal.

He debated putting on an eyepatch. He had been going to school without one for a couple days, but this was different. If his eye turned red and he didn’t catch it, that was it for him. He was really stretching how long he could wear it, though. A scratch like he said it was would only take a couple days to heal. Besides, he didn’t know if he wanted to deal with another round of questions about it.

“Great! We brought home some takeout!” his mother. “Why don’t you come down here and eat with us!”

He said again, quietly but emphatically, “ _Fuck_.”

Danny made another circuit around his room, nearly pulling his hair out, before he made up his mind and reluctantly went down to the kitchen.

“We got you your favorite,” his mom said as she started to set the table. “Kung pao chicken.”

“I think I’m just gonna go eat in my room,” Danny said.

He prayed, _prayed,_ that they would just let it go, that he could just slink back to his room and dump his plate out the window, so the birds and other wildlife could clean it up. They’d certainly enjoy it more than he would.

“Come on, Danny! Eat with your folks this one time,” his dad said. “We’ve got a lot of juicy details from the case you’ll wanna hear!”

Somehow Danny doubted that.

He reluctantly made his plate and sat down with his parents, still cursing the situation. Of course they’d insist on this. Family meals had become virtually nonexistent once Jazz had moved out, reserved for only the holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was so infuriatingly ironic that they would make a big deal about eating at the table now.

“We finally got the DNA from the saliva on the bodies, but it was already clear which ghoul was responsible,” Maddie Fenton said over the dinner table, talking at Danny rather than to him.

Danny pushed around his food with a growing scowl.

“One was a police officer, and the other was an ex-marine who had a collection of semiautomatics and .50 calibers in his house, which are enough to at least seriously injure a ghoul. It’s clearly Skulker’s modus operandi.”

“Skulker’s a dumb name,” Danny said as he forced himself to take a bite. 

He held his breath as he chewed and swallowed quickly. Thankfully, growing up with parents that didn’t know how to cook to save their lives had taught him how to pretend to enjoy disgusting food.

“It’s just his code name,” his mom said dismissively. “We don’t know his real identity.”

“It’s pretty chilling, though,” Jack said, “because if he’s around then Plasmius must be, too.”

Danny froze as he lifted another bite to his mouth.

“And you were just asking about him the other day!” He slapped Danny on the back. “What a coincidence.”

Danny dropped the bite back into his bowl. “Uh, so, is there anything else you can tell me about Skulker?”

“He’s basically Plasmius’ attack dog,” Danny’s mother said. “He sends Skulker out whenever he needs to have another gang leader assassinated—or if a GIW investigator gets too close.”

“Yeah, you know Plasmius is the kinda guy that doesn’t get his hands dirty,” Jack interjected.

Maddie scoffed. “All gang leaders are.”

Danny scratched the back of his hand nervously. “So, what does he look like—Skulker I mean?”

“Very tall,” Maddie described. “From six four to six seven. Um, long brown hair, I think one survivor said. And of course his mask: it’s shaped like a skull and it’s metallic.”

Danny’s stomach did a flip, only adding to the upset caused by eating human food. 

Wait, was he really already separating himself from humans?

“I, uh, need to go to the bathroom. I forgot to wash my hands,” Danny said, quickly rising from the table.

His mother made a face. “Danny, there’s a sink in here.”

He ignored her and rushed out of the kitchen. 

…

Another week of simply going through the motions went by before it really seemed to sink in. He had fully convinced himself that he would go crazy with hunger in another month and kill someone then be hunted down by his parents. 

But he still had control over one thing: keeping Sam and Tucker safe. He decided that distancing himself from them was the best thing to do, because if he was going to kill someone he could at least make sure it wasn’t them. And if that made them miss him less when he was gone then so be it. They deserved to remember him as he was before turning into a monster anyway.

It really wasn’t that simple, though.

Danny tried to avoid them, sitting across the room from Tucker in homeroom, doing the same to Sam in geography, disappearing during lunch and hiding under the bleachers. He even started recognizing their scents and turning the other way when he smelled them in the hall. He didn’t answer their calls, and responded to their texts of “where were you at lunch?” and “are you avoiding us?” with lame answers like, “I just need some space right now.”

After almost a week of that, Sam and Tucker decided to ambush him at his house.

...

Danny hung upside down off the edge of his bed, half hoping that if he stayed like that long enough that all the blood would rush to his head and kill him. He faced the floor length mirror and was able to see under his bed all the way to the other side of his room. 

When he was younger he used to get so scared that he might see something under his bed in the mirror’s reflection, imagine that he’d see red eyes staring at him in the mirror like a ghoul from his parents stories. Perhaps one of those cannibalistic monsters had snuck into his room and hid under his bed, lying in wait for when he went to sleep that night.

He brought his arm over the side of the bed and held his hand under the mattress, wiggling his fingers. He let his eye go red, and muttered, “Now I’m the monster under my bed.”

Danny had his music turned up again, almost to the point where it would be annoying for anybody else in the house, but he still heard his dad yell from downstairs. 

“Danny! Your friends are here!”

Danny startled and tumbled off of his bed head first. He groaned as he got up and turned down his stereo.

“Did’ya here me, Danny-o? Sam and Tucker are here!” his dad called again.

He let out a quiet curse and went down stairs. Tucker looked a bit sheepish, but Sam looked downright pissed.

“It’s been a while since you two have been over, huh?” Jack said cheerfully, missing all the hostility radiating off of Sam. “Welp,” he said, clapping his hands, “I’ll be down in the lab.”

The lab being their basement. They stored most of their disturbing collection of quinques down there and also used the space to develop new weaponry.

His dad lumbered off and Danny was left alone with Sam and Tucker. Danny looked at his feet and rubbed the back of his neck. After an excruciating moment of silence he stuttered, “Do you guys wanna take this to my room, or…”

“Sure,” Tucker answered.

He led them upstairs and to his room. He barely had time to close the door before Sam said, “What the fuck is happening with you? Where have you been for the last week?!”

Danny sighed and went over to his desk chair. 

He didn’t know how to answer her. Hell, he didn’t even know what was happening to him. He didn’t know how any of it was possible, and he wished he could tell them. He trusted that they wouldn’t tell anyone, at least out of respect for their former relationship, but they would be disgusted and repulsed by what he had become. He couldn’t stand that. He would rather have them be angry with them and think he was just some jerk for ditching them to be alone.

“You’re not even gonna answer me?” Sam spat.

He internally cringed away from her ire, but outwardly he just shrugged.

“Danny, seriously, come on, man,” Tucker pleaded.

Danny averted his eyes from Tucker. Sam’s anger he could handle, but the sheer sadness and disappointment in Tucker’s eyes was too much.

He cleared his throat. “I, uh, I’m just dealing with a lot right now.”

“Something that you can’t even tell your _friends_ about!?” Sam hissed.

“No.”

She seethed. “When the hell did this start? All the way back to Wednesday last week, when you came in drunk to school? Was that a lie? And the eyepatch—was that somehow a part of this, too?”

Danny swallowed a lump. “Yeah.”

“Whatever you’ve gotten into, man, just tell us and we’ll figure this out,” Tucker said.

Danny looked at Tucker and something broke inside of him. He gripped the edge of the desk almost hard enough to splinter the wood.

“I don’t want your help!” he snapped. “I just want you to LEAVE ME ALONE!”

Danny felt his eye turn red. He covered his face and turned away. At the same time, Sam turned on her heel and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

There was a long pause before Tucker said quietly, “You didn’t mean that.”

Danny didn’t respond. His shoulders started to tremble with pent up sobs, and his throat closed. Tucker took a step towards him and laid a hand on his shoulder. Danny got a whiff of him, and his stomach clenched with hunger. He shrugged off Tucker’s hand.

Tucker let out a frustrated sigh. “Fuck, man. What’s going on with you?” he said quietly.

Danny still refused to respond. Tucker let out another sigh and walked out.

…

Tucker stood outside the door for a second, hoping that Danny would call him back in—even though he was somewhat scared of this new version of his friend. He was disappointed of course.

He went back out to the car to find Sam brooding in the passenger seat. She wouldn’t look at him as he got into the driver’s side.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded wordlessly.

“Do you want me to drive you home?”

“No.”

“Alright,” he muttered.

He started up the car and just started driving, not aiming to go to either of their houses.

A minute later, Sam spoke up. “How could he?” She didn’t sound angry, just soul crushingly hurt.

“He’s just going through some stuff,” Tucker said halfhearted. He gripped the steering wheel a little tighter.

“But that’s no excuse!”

Tucker shook his head. “Maybe not, but we don’t know what he’s going through.”

She leaned against the window and let out a shaking breath. “I thought he was different. I thought he really cared about...me.”

“This fucking sucks for me, too. We’ve been friends since kindergarten.”

Her voice became reedy. “I know, but I mean…”

Tucker raised his eyebrows and glanced at her. “Oh...Ooh, shit…”

Tucker had always joked about Sam and Danny being together, much like the whole grade, but he never actually thought there were any feelings there. And Sam, strong and dark goth that she was, of course she would rather eat broken glass than talk to Tucker about something so sensitive—at least until now.

She drew in a shuddering breath, and Tucker pulled over. He reached over her knees and popped open the glove box. 

“There’s some napkins in there if…”

She pulled out some of his hoarded Taco Bell napkins and dabbed at her eyes, even though a couple tears had already escaped, making her mascara run a little bit.

“Fuck,” she cursed. “This fucking sucks.”

“Yep.”

“Least of all the fact that my face now smells like meximelt,” she said, her voice cracking.

Tucker chuckled without any real humor. He put a hand on her shoulder, expecting her to shrug it off like Danny had, but instead she turned to him and hugged him over the center console. His eyebrows shot up, and he was so stunned that he couldn’t move for a moment. After he got his bearings back, he tentatively wrapped his arms around her shoulders.

“I’m so worried about him,” she breathed. “It has to be really bad for him to act like this.”

“I know.”

…

Tucker tapped his foot on the concrete stoop and rang the doorbell again. 

About another week of Danny avoiding him and Sam had passed, and Tucker finally decided, enough was enough, he was going to try to talk to Danny again. So he had driven to Fenton’s house on Sunday, Danny’s day off of work. Tucker knew this was bordering on stalking—but damn it! He was going to give Danny one more chance— _one more chance_ —even if he wasn’t willing to give himself that. He needed another chance, and Tucker needed it, too. 

They had been friends for so long, and basically done everything together since kindergarten. Danny had even gone on some of Tucker’s family vacations when they were younger, and vice versa. They were so close for so long that Tucker had almost melded him into his identity. 

Tucker rang the bell again, and finally a couple seconds later Danny opened the door. He looked tired, like he hadn’t slept at all last night. He looked down at Tucker with a resigned expression.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“Because I don’t think you should be alone despite what you say.”

Danny huffed. “I literally screamed at you to leave me alone the last time we saw each other.”

Tucker scuffed the ground with his foot. “Yeah, that, like, had the opposite effect you were going for. It only convinced me more that you need a friend right now.”

Danny sighed, and wordlessly moved aside to let Tucker in.

They went up to his room. Danny picked up two games off the top of the stack beside his tv and held them up for Tucker.

“Mario Kart, duh,” he answered.

Danny threw him a controller and put the game in. He flopped down on his bed, and Tucker sat down at the edge.

After a couple rounds for mostly Tucker winning, Danny said, “So where’s Sam?” He asked it like it was just a normal afternoon, and he hadn’t gone apeshit on them a week ago.

Tucker shrugged. “She didn’t wanna come. I thought it’d be best for her to stay home, anyway.”

“So she hates me.”

Tucker’s thumb slipped sending his car careening off the side of the track. “No, but you did hurt her pretty bad.”

“And it didn’t hurt you too?”

Tucker frowned, and almost slipped up again in the game. “Of course it did.”

“You should be with Sam. She needs a friend more than I do right now.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

The game paused and Tucker turned around to face Danny. Danny frowned and said with an angry edge to his tone, “Why can’t you just accept that I want to be alone?”

“Why do you want to be alone?” Tucker demanded. “Why do you _think_ you want to be alone?”

Danny's jaw set and he stared Tucker down. But Tucker wasn’t backing down. After a beat, Danny said quietly, “Because.”

“Because why?”

Danny looked away. “Because…” his jaw worked like he was fighting with himself about what to say next. Tucker waited, hoping that his resolve would break, but the next words out of his mouth were, “I can’t tell you.”

“Why?!”

“Because I can’t!” he snapped. 

Danny let out a long breath and laid back on his bed, putting his hands over his face.

Tucker sighed and put down his controller. “I’m going to go get something to drink.” He stood. “Do you want anything?” he said as more of an afterthought.

“No,” Danny muttered through his fingers.

_Well, at least he had responded with something._

“Alright, then.”

…

Danny was both disappointed and guiltily thankful that Tucker still tried to cling to their friendship—but he wasn’t surprised. Tucker always had been stubborn ever since Danny met him. And when Tucker came to his house, incessantly friendly, Danny couldn’t bring himself to tell him to go away again.

And then Sam’s birthday came and went and Danny didn’t even try to say ‘happy birthday’ as they passed each other in the halls. It was good, he should be happy that she hated him. He should wish that Tucker would, too.

About a week into month three of being a ghoul, the hunger began to get bad. He started getting headaches and stomach cramps, and started getting thoughts that disturbed him—thoughts and fantasies of eating people, particularly when someone got too close.

On the two days he had off work, Wednesday and Sunday, Danny delayed going home from school right up until curfew at ten o’clock, and Sundays, almost as soon as he woke up, he got out of the house, all to avoid a potential surprise visit from Tucker. And when Danny’s parents called to ask where he was—which was minimal at best—he’d say he was out with friends, not specifying Sam and/or Tucker, in case one of them (Tucker) came to his house.

He had to wonder, was this what Plasmius had wanted? For Danny to simply languish in despair until his parents found out he was a ghoul and killed him? And for what? Some sort of backhanded revenge?

Danny began to hate the ghoul, even though he knew that nothing would come out of those feelings. But hate was just directed anger, and anger came from helplessness.

Through it all he kept going to school and doing his homework, for some reason. To be fair, what would he do with his time otherwise? He had all but abandoned his friends. And he had to keep the illusion up for as long as he could, because he was still clinging to some small bit of denial.

That was until a kid broke his nose in PE and Danny nearly pounced on him and killed him at the smell of blood. Instead, Danny simply left the gymnasium and walked out of school.

Danny walked down the dark road. The lights of the city bounced off the clouds, making the night sky a dark gray. Thunder grumbled in the distance, and he could taste the ozone with each flash of lightning in the clouds. It could start raining at any second.

The thunder pounded, and Danny felt it reverberate in his head. He clenched his jaw as pain stabbed his temples, and he felt his eye go red. His stomach grumbled, needlessly reminding him of his hunger. His breath fogged as he let out a groan.

He glanced at his watch: 10:23 it read, already past his curfew. Was it already too late to play it off? He didn’t really have an excuse for skipping school in the first place. 

Danny lingered at an intersection. Left would take him to his street, right would take him away, and straight would keep him on his seemingly endless circle. He had been circling his block for almost half an hour trying to work up the nerve to go back home and tell his parents. He needed to. He needed to do something before he killed someone. But as he was about to go left, start the road to execution, there was movement out of the corner of his eye.

A hunched and gaunt figure stumbled out of a bar, aided by another man and then left alone on the curb. Danny didn’t smell alcohol on the wind, so the scrawny man may have been kicked out before he could get a drink.

Something caused Danny to move, some sort of new instinct made his heart beat a little faster and his stomach clench. The figure stumbled into an alley between two dark stores a couple doors down from the bar, and Danny followed.

The sky opened up, pouring down freezing rain, but Danny hardly felt it. The man he stalked grumbled weakly and huddled under the eaves of a roof. He hadn’t realized that Danny was in the alley with him yet.

Danny listened quietly for a moment. The man’s breathing was shallow, and his heartbeat was off, sounding like it was skipping every other beat. He was probably dying.

Danny walked forward towards the man, and the veil began to fall again.

…

The November rain washed the blood into the gutter. Danny was soaked to the bone, but he shivered more from panic and fear than the cold. 

When he “woke up” he almost screamed. There was so much blood everywhere. It was all over his clothes, and his hands, and his face. Even though the rain had washed most of it away, he still felt it on him, like it stained his skin the same way it stained his clothes.

He sat with his shoulder against the wall, curled up under the eaves with his back turned to the mutilated corpse. His brain was almost blank with panic. He couldn’t get himself to move other than what he already had. He couldn’t stay there and wait to be discovered. Or could he? Should he? It would take the burden off of his parents at least. That would be good right?

He sobbed. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want that bastard Plasmius to win. But he was a monster through and through now. He had killed someone and deserved it.

But what did they do to deserve this? He had almost been as distant with them the last month as he had with his friends. And poor Jazz. He had been avoiding her weekly calls. He didn’t think he had talked to her at all since any of this had started.

Danny pulled out his phone and turned it back. He had turned it off knowing that they would call, that they would be worried. He couldn’t pick up, and he didn’t want to listen to his phone ring nonstop. There were seven missed calls from his parents. He was about to call them back and tell them….he didn’t know what. Maybe that he loved them and that they were good parents? And then what? Just hang up?

The choice was taken out of his hands when his phone suddenly rang. He startled so badly he almost dropped the cell phone. He looked at the caller ID, but instead of his parents it was Tucker. With his hands shaking, he answered.

“Dude! Your parents are worried about you!” Tucker nearly yelled over the line. “They even called me to ask about you. What the hell is going on?”

Danny didn’t answer, words sticking in his throat.

“Danny?”

He swallowed thickly. “I-I—you…” he paused and tried again. “S-something really bad happened.”

There was a beat on Tucker’s end, then he asked, “Are you okay?”

“No.”

Tucker hissed a curse. “Are you hurt?”

“N-no.”

“Okay, what happened?”

“I killed someone,” Danny breathed.

His stomach churned as there was another pause on the line. 

Finally, Tucker asked, “Is this a joke?” His voice squeaked.

“You know I would never joke like this.”

A long intake of air, then, “Danny, what happened?”

“You should just call the police, or my parents or something. I—“

“Danny, no, no, ju-just tell me—No, you know what, we’ll talk about this when I pick you up. Where are you?”

Danny blinked, and whispered, dumbfounded, “What…”

“We’ll...we’ll figure this out,” Tucker said, more like he was trying to convince himself. “Just tell me where you are.”

“No!” Danny shouted. “Did you not hear me?! I k—“

“Yes, I heard you! Now tell me where you are.”

“I...I don’t understand…”

“Danny. Come on, brother. Just tell me where you’re at, please…”

He swallowed a lump. “I’m, um, on Lethe Avenue, in the alley behind that little hardware store, um...I forget it’s name.”

“Parker’s Hardware Store?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you alone?”

Danny thought about the deadman at his back. “Yeah.”

“Then I’m coming to get you.”

Danny tried one more attempt to get his friend to do the right thing. “Please, don’t come… Just call the cops or something,” he pleaded weakly.

“Don’t go anywhere, and don’t do anything else stupid, alright?”

Danny nodded his head even though he knew Tucker couldn’t see him. “Alright,” he murmured.

…

Tucker drove up into the alleyway about ten minutes later, his headlights turned off. Danny pressed his back further into the wall and covered his red eye with his hand. It was more out of reflex at that point. Tucker jumped out of his car wearing a dark rain jacket and brandishing a small flashlight. He turned the flashlight on and shined it at Danny, then on the body a few feet away.

Tucker stilled and his eyes widened. He visibly gulped before turning the flashlight back on Danny.

“I covered it with my jacket so you...didn’t have to see the worst of it,” Danny said, a tremor running through his body.

Tucker came closer and Danny scooted away. “What happened?” he asked, trying to stay calm. He glanced at the hand covering Danny’s eye. “Something wrong with your eye?”

Danny sighed and removed his hand. Immediately Tucker jumped back, cursing. He nearly dropped the flashlight, fumbling it for a moment before directing it back on Danny.

“What the—how the— How the hell…?!”

Danny lowered his eyes. “I don’t really know how. I just know that almost four months ago some ghouls abducted me and...they did something.” 

Remarkably, Tucker came closer and knelt down. Danny pressed his back into the wall like he was trying to merge with it. “And you didn’t tell anybody about this?! Not your parents—not us?”

Danny lifted his gaze. Tucker tried to hold his eye but quickly shied away from the red orb looking at him. 

“Mom and Dad were still across the state when it happened. I was too freaked out to tell them about it, and what would I say anyway? You know what they do for a living right? I-I should have just told them before I killed someone, but I didn’t want to die.”

He drew in a long breath and let his head fall into his hands. “I-I didn’t want to, I swear. But ghouls...when they go too long without eating, they lose their minds. I fucking tried to stop myself…” His hands gripped his wet hair and grounded out through clenched teeth, “I should have known, but I was too damn selfish.”

He heard Tucker gulp again. “I, um, I have trash bags in my car. We can talk more about this later.”

Danny’s head shot up. “You’re joking. I’m a fucking monster! A literal monster! And you’re still trying to help me?”

Tucker hissed, “You’re gonna be a dead monster if you don’t lower your damn voice! And yeah, I’m still helping you. You’re my best friend.”

Danny gave Tucker a worried and alarmed look. “Yeah, but there’s kinda a line for how far you should help a friend. That is: aiding and abetting _murder!”_

Tucker’s eyebrows pinched for a moment, doubt briefly passing over his expression. But his resolve redoubled just as quick. “Shut up, and just help me get this guy in the car.”

Danny wrapped the man up in two large trash bags. Tucker tried to help at first but wretched at the first sight of meat. Once everything was covered, Danny lugged him into the back seat of Tucker’s car. Then hopped in shotgun.

Tucker started up the car, cranking up the heat before backing out of the alley and driving off. He held the steering wheel in a white knuckled grip.

“You know, if we get pulled over, we’re fucked,” Danny commented.

“Don’t fucking jinx it, dude.”

“Where are we even going to go?” Danny asked.

“I already called Sam,” Tucker said. “Told her you were in trouble and to just wait for us at her front gate.”

Danny turned to him with wide eyes. “You’re bringing Sam into this?!”

“She’s the only one of us that has anywhere to bury a body.”

“Did you even tell her what was going on?”

Tucker squirmed a bit and answered, “No.”

Danny groaned and leaned back in his seat. “Sam’s gonna kill both of us. She’ll strangle you to death and then just glare at me hard enough to kill me. And then she’ll bury all three of our bodies.”

“No, she won’t,” Tucker said. “Also you should probably scoot over to the middle ‘cause I’m pretty sure she won’t wanna sit in the back with the McCorpse.”

“Jesus Christ,Tucker.”

“Also your eye’s back to normal.”

They pulled up to the entrance of Sam’s long private drive and sure enough she stood out by the gate with a flashlight and a rain poncho, looking both worried and furious. They pulled past the gate and Sam closed it behind them. She started to go to the back passenger door, but Danny opened his door and stuck his head out.

“You’ll wanna sit up here with us. We’ve got a body back there,” Danny deadpanned.

Sam raised an eyebrow but climbed up into the passenger side beside Danny. “What’s the deal? Are we transporting drugs or something?” she asked, only half joking.

“Danny told you,” Tucker said, “we’ve got a body in the back.”

“Very funny,” she said.

Danny gave her a look and edged away from her a bit. When dawning horror started to appear on her face, he quickly looked away, swallowing.

“You’re not kidding?” she asked. Both boys shook their heads.

She twisted over the back of her seat to look at the body. She quickly turned back around with a hard look aimed at Danny. 

She said in a dangerously calm voice, “What the fuck is going on?”

“Hey, Sam, can you just tell us where we can bury this thing so we don’t all get charged for murder?” Tucker said. 

“Actually you’d both get charged with aiding and ab—“

“What the fuck is going on!?” she repeated louder this time. “Why the hell is there a dead body in the car, and why didn’t you warn me about this you fucking dick!” She said, reaching over Danny to slap Tucker’s shoulder.

“I told you that Danny was in trouble. I didn’t really want to say anything else before I got the story,” Tucker said. “Also, I’m driving! Don’t hit me for fucksake!”

Sam turned to Danny. “Did you kill someone? Is this part of everything that’s been going on?”

“Yeah, um, I’ll tell you everything, but I feel like it’s only fair to wait to do so when we’re not in such a confined space. But I’m telling you, you should call the cops, or my parents, or whatever. Tucker won’t listen to reason.”

“Because you’ll be killed, and I’m not letting them kill my friend!”

“Okay, I’m going to say this one more time, what the fuck is going on?!” Sam said. “I don’t care what you think my response will be. I’m not doing anything before I hear the story behind this batshit situation!”

Tucker stopped his car, putting it in park. They were still only halfway up Sam’s driveway. “Alright, Sam, you wanna hear the story? Well, Danny’s a ghoul somehow, and he got so hangry he killed and munched on a due.”

Danny turned to Tucker. “I really don’t appreciate you putting it like that.”

Sam grabbed Danny’s shoulder and physically turned him back towards her. “Are you… is that...true?”

“Yeah…” 

He willed his eye to turn red. There was the same twinge as always a moment before Sam gasped and her eyes went wide. She didn’t jolt away like Tucker had, instead her hand gripped Danny’s shoulder tighter, to the point it would be painful for a human. 

“But...you’re human… How…?”

Danny drew in a breath. “Several weeks ago while my parents were on that case a couple counties over, I was abducted while walking home from work. They took me somewhere and...did something to me. I don’t know what. Some sort of operation I guess. They knocked me out for it. Then I just woke up in my bed the next morning.” He let out a humorless chuckle. “And my life was over just like that.”

“Your life doesn’t have to be over,” Tucker said. “Come on, Sam, help me out here.”

Instead of saying anything, she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him. Danny’s eyes began to sting with tears, and a sob escaped him. He pulled out of the embrace only enough to grab Tucker by his sweater and yank him into the awkward, cramped hug. Tucker stiffened before wrapping an arm around Danny’s back. 

Danny hunched up, almost doubling over. He rested his forehead on Sam’s shoulder. Tucker shifted, nearly draping himself over Danny’s back. He felt Tucker’s chin rest on the nape of his neck, the beginning of stubble tickling a little.

Tucker sighed. “It’s gonna be okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really debated with myself on how this chapter should go, if it should be as dark as I made it out to be. My thought process was that Danny never had someone to show him the ropes, like Kaneki did. All Danny ever had were his friends to help him stumble blindly through his transformation and slightly mitigate the damage. Only around the end of the series did he get a mentor figure with Frostbite.
> 
> And of course this is one of the angstiest fandoms and one of the angstiest animes out there, so what else could I do?


	4. Grave

The mansion loomed out of the woods, a gray stoned edifice atop a green hill. It was just visible through the tree lined path. Sam saw it looming ahead of her many times before, but never like this. It felt different this time, like it was still her home (though she hardly called it that even before), but she knew that everything had somehow changed—that all the furniture had shifted an inch to the left, or her mother’s hydrangeas were the wrong shade of blue—something almost imperceptible but definitely different than it had been only minutes ago. Her whole world had changed so quickly.

And then she scolded herself for thinking like that. _Her_ whole world had changed? That was laughable. Danny’s the one that had been abducted and then...mutilated? Was there even a word that aptly described what had happened to him?

She felt an elbow in her ribs. She looked to Danny and then Tucker when he nodded to the shorter man. 

“What?” she asked a little testily, because angry was apparently her default.

“Hey, you know we can’t just keep driving to your house,” Tucker said. 

She started and realized where they were. “Oh, shit! Stop, stop!”

Tucker quickly stepped on the breaks. 

“What?”

“Fuck, you already passed it, didn’t you?” She sat forward in her seat and squinted through the rain. A faint gray outline barely stood out against the rain a few yards ahead of them. She sat back in her seat and let out a small breath. “Okay, you didn’t pass it. Good.”

“Pass what?” Danny asked.

She couldn’t quite meet his eyes as she said, “There’s a lion statue up ahead and a camera just past that.”

“What system do you operate?” Tucker asked.

Sam shrugged. “It’s pretty outdated. Still records to VHS.”

“You know, just advice for the future, if you need to scrub something you can just take a strong magnet to the tape and it’ll fuck it up,” Tucker said.

“Good to know.”

“So where do we go then?” Danny asked.

“There’s a really narrow dirt road right ahead of us on the left. It’s kinda hidden, though, especially with it pissing rain like this. Just go slow.”

Tucker carefully turned onto the treacherous looking path. It potholed badly whenever it rained, and neither she nor her parents used it very often, so it was left to be nearly washed away at times before they got someone out to fill in the holes in the dirt road. 

Tucker cringed every time he nearly bottomed out, slowing down each time he hit a pothole until he was going at a crawl. Sam tapped her fingers impatiently on the hand rest in the passenger door, wishing he wouldn’t be quite so cautious.

The path suddenly became too narrow to drive through. Tucker stopped and both he and Danny turned to her with dismayed looks.

“So...what now?”

Sam sighed. “I think you know what: we walk.” She shot Danny an apologetic look. “You can stay in here if you want. There’s a shed a little bit further up the path. Me and Tucker’ll be right back with a couple of shovels.

Danny tried to hide a cringe. “No, I’ll...take the body a ways off the path while you’re doing that.”

“If you say so.” She handed him her flashlight. “Use this to signal to us.”

He nodded and took it from her.

Tucker turned off the car and they all got out into the freezing rain. Danny pulled the corpse out of the back seat, carrying it bridal style. Tucker averted his eyes, but Sam watched with a sort of macabre curiosity. Danny caught her eye, and they both looked away guiltily.

Tucked tapped her arm and nodded down the path. “Come on, let's go.”

They walked down the path, miserable and cold, though Sam knew Danny had to have it much worse—even as a ghoul.

The thought startled her as it crossed her mind. Danny was a ghoul now, wasn’t he? What did that mean for his future—for their future? She sure as hell wasn't going to let him go now that she knew he had gotten into something so terrible—through no fault of his own. She wished he had just told her and Tucker. Maybe they could have figured out something before it had come to this.

Not to say she didn’t have any sort of trepidation towards the situation. Her friend had killed someone—

She was suddenly pulled out of her thoughts when Tucker yelped as he nearly slipped in the mud. She grabbed his arm to steady him, but only succeeded in losing her balance, as well. They both fell. Tucker landed on her, sprawling across her lower torso. 

Tucker tried to scramble off of her, stuttering a string of “sorries”. Sam ignored him and gave him a strong shove. He threw his hands behind him, only just saving himself from sitting down in the mud. 

Sam groaned as she stood up, shaking the mud off her hands, and her flashlight. The cold mud seeping through her sweatpants only made the situation even more miserable. 

She helped Tucker up, narrowly avoiding slipping again, and got back on their way.

They finally got to the shed, and there were only two shovels. She and Tucker took both.

As they left, Tucker looked up the hill at the stable. “Is that a barn?” He smirked at her. “Did your parents buy you ponies for your birthday?”

Sam rolled her eyes. “No, it was there when grandma and grandpa bought the house in the 80’s. It’s been empty ever since.”

“Aww,” he said with mock disappointment. “I was really hoping that you were secretly a horse girl.”

She scoffed. “I’m not secretly anything. I don’t hide that I like stuff just because I’m afraid to get mocked for it.”

“Except with Danny.”

She shot him a glare. “Don’t go there right now.”

Tucker made a face. “Right, sorry.”

The conversation lulled and Sam thought they would continue the rest of the way back in silence, but a moment later, Tucker spoke up again.

“So how are you taking this?” he asked.

Sam shrugged. “As well as I can, I suppose. What about you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve really taken it all in yet.”

She shook her head. “Me neither.”

There was a beat and then she asked, “Why do you think they did it?”

Tucker shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s like one of those vampire stories where the vampire turns the vampire hunter for revenge or something. Apparently, they just did this to him and dumped him back home. I don’t know why they would do that if it wasn’t supposed to be some sort of message.”

Sam nodded quietly. That made sense. Danny’s parents had probably made enemies in their line of work, and since they were both skilled at killing ghouls, it would be safer to go after Danny, anyway.

“But why turn him into a ghoul,” she asked. “Why not just kill him?”

“I don’t know,” Tucker said quietly. He was barely audible over the sound of the rain. “Maybe they thought that wasn’t bad enough. They wanted to see him suffer.” There was a beat and then he said, “Because I’m sure he would prefer it be the other way.”

She glanced at him, shocked, although she knew she shouldn’t be. Tucker wouldn’t look at her.

They walked back to the car and Tucker shone the flashlight into the woods. They were quickly answered by another beam of light. They followed it and met Danny several yards off of the trail. He looked like a drowned rat, forlornly stood with his arms hugged around him.

“Seriously, dude. You can sit this one out,” Tucker said. “You’re gonna get hypothermia.”

Danny shook his head. “No, I’m fine. It’s not as bad as it probably would be if...um, for you I mean.”

Sam glanced down at the body and saw that the trash bags had been pulled away a bit and exposed the man’s torso. She gulped as she saw gore peeking out of ripped fabric. Danny followed her gaze and grimaced. He quickly knelt down and pulled the trash bag back over the exposed bit.

“Uh, so is this a good spot to start?” Tucker asked no one in particular.

Sam nodded absently.

Tucker started digging and she moved closer to Danny. 

“I, um, I was looking for ID,” Danny said.

She blinked a little dumbly. “What?”

“The bag—it was like that because I was looking for ID.”

“Oh. Why?”

He fidgeted. “I just...wanted to know who he was.” 

He bent down again and picked up an extremely worn black leather wallet. He opened it to show her it was completely empty save for a driver's license.

“You probably shouldn’t have touched it. Fingerprints, you know…”

He shrugged. “I’m not on record, and it’s going in the ground with all the rest of him, anyway.”

“Fair point,” Sam said.

She took the wallet from him like it could fall apart in her hands at any moment—or like it was filthy. She reluctantly pulled the ID out of its slot and looked at it more closely. It said his name was Robert McKennan and that he was 46 years old, but when she looked at his picture, he looked much older than that—and the license was several years out of date. 

“He was probably homeless,” she said quietly.

“Yeah, I figured that, too. And from what I remember before it...went dark, he seemed like he was already dying.” He paused, staring off into the woods for a couple beats, then he asked, “Does that make it any better—or just worse?”

“He probably had no one. Nobody’ll miss him,” Sam said, only realizing a moment too late how her words sounded. 

What a despicable way to put it, she thought. ‘Nobody’ll miss him’? Has she ever said anything so disdainful? A life had ended! It didn’t matter if no one would “miss him”.

Danny looked away. “That doesn’t mean he deserved to die.”

“This isn’t about ‘deserve’,” she said. “This is completely unintentional on your part. It’s like...if you lost control of your car and accidentally hit someone.”

Danny chuckled darkly. “Is that all this is then? Just a terrible accident?” He turned and looked her in the eye. “I killed and ate him, Sam.” She mentally flinched at the bluntness of his words. He turned away from her again. “And I’ll do it again if I’m not stopped.”

“What if you...killed people that _deserved_ it then?”

He turned back to her, his expression pinched. “I don’t want to kill _anyone_.”

“Hey!” Tucker piped up. “Are you two going to keep standing there talking while I work away, burying this guy _you_ vored?”

Danny sputtered, his body language changing in an instant, thankfully to something less depressing. “Jesus Fucking Christ, Tucker!”

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?”

“No!” Danny responded indignantly. “I don’t have a fetish for eating people! You’re the one with the weird fetish here.”

“It’s not a fetish!” Tucker shot back instantly. Sam couldn’t help but to snicker. Sometimes she was amazed at how quickly he could change the mood in a room. 

Tucker suddenly looked bashful for his outburst. “I just...like the art and stuff—you know what, we’re not talking about this! Are you guys gonna help me or not?”

Oh, right. They were digging a grave...for the man that Danny had killed. Did she forget that for a second?

Danny turned back to Sam and held out his hand. “I’ll help dig.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “And what? Leave me holding the flashlight?”

“It’s a valuable part of the job, as well.”

“You should go wait in the car,” she said.

The rain was starting to let up thankfully, but Danny’s lips were starting to turn blue.

“I’m not going to the car. It’s my mess. I need to help clean it up.” He raised his eyebrows and held out his hand again. “Please?”

She frowned and handed him the shovel. “Alright, fine. But—“ she started taking off her rain poncho, eliciting a startled cry of ‘Sam!’ from both boys. Once she had it over her head, she roughly pushed it on Danny. “—you’re taking this, too.”

“Sam, you can’t just stand out here in the rain!” Danny protested.

She had already begun shivering as the frigid water pierced through her clothes. “I’m not. I'm going to the car. I’m not gonna stand around doing nothing.”

“Sam!” Danny said again, but she had already turned around and started walking through the trees. 

She heard Tucker behind her say, “Hey, dude, just let her go.”

She was shivering violently by the time she finally got back to Tucker’s car. She started it up and quickly turned on the heat at full blast. 

She leaned her chin on the steering wheel and tried to swallow the lump that had been forming in her throat for the last five minutes. It stubbornly stayed in place, even growing further, blocking her airway like it was trying to choke her. She drew in a strangled breath and released it as a sob—and after one sob, one crack, one break in her composure, the dam crumbled.

…

Danny started to go after her, but Tucker said, “Hey, dude, just let her go.”

Danny turned to him. The poorly suppressed flinch told him that his eye had turned red again, but Tucker didn’t drop his gaze. He just shook his head with a serious look. Danny approached Tucker, rubbing his right eye; the physical action seemed to help make it go away. 

“She probably wants to be alone for a little bit,” Tucker said quieter. “You know she’s not as tough as she pretends to be.”

Danny sighed and stuck the shovel in the ground. “Yeah, I know.”

They worked mostly in quiet for the next ten minutes or so, until Danny asked, “Did you ever call my parents back and tell them anything?”

“Yeah, before I came to get you. Wouldn’t want them freaking out too much.”

“What did you say?”

“That your girlfriend from another school just broke up with you by text in the middle of class. Of course they were surprised that you had a girlfriend in the first place to which I replied that I too was very surprised that you had a girlfriend—“ Danny shot him an annoyed look “—but you’re also a private, timid soul and like to keep things close to the vest. Then I told them I was gonna talk to you to calm you down before bringing you home.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “Thanks for that, I guess, but now I have to make up a completely new person.”

“No, you don’t. If they ask, just say that you don’t wanna talk about it. Easy.”

Danny chuckled humorlessly and threw a shovelful of mud over his shoulder. “Easy, right. Because being a ghoul and living in a house full of GIW operatives is easy, let alone being a ghoul in the first place.”

“Well, that part isn't easy, I’m sure. But just think, your birthday is only a week and a half away. You’d be eighteen, and you could move out. That’s one less thing, right?”

“It still doesn’t solve the first thing.”

Tucker paused a second, throwing away another shovel of dirt. He didn’t meet Danny’s eyes as he said, “We’ll figure it out.”

“How?”

Tucker shrugged. He said, almost too quiet to hear over the rain, “I could try to...look on the dark web. I can find a supplier for food and Sam could pay for it.”

Danny grimaced and shook his head. “No, we’re not doing that. There’s no way to know where it came from. It could be from a dead kid or something.”

“Well, then there’s Sam’s suggestion.”

Danny stuck his shovel into the ground so it stood on its own. He huffed and pushed his wet hair out of his face. “I’m not going to become some sort of vigilante, or something!” he said, just keeping himself from shouting.

Tucker’s brow pinched in a worried frown. He stuck his shovel in the ground like Danny had, and said, “But you have to do something. You were talking about people not deserving to die earlier, well what about you!? You don’t deserve to die!”

“I KILLED SOMEONE!” Danny screamed, making Tucker startle and lean away. “What aren’t you getting about that!? I fucking killed someone, Tucker! How do I not deserve to die?”

Danny started to turn away, but Tucker quickly grabbed his arm. He turned Danny back towards himself and grabbed his other arm. “That doesn’t mean you can’t make it right! If you get yourself killed—or worse—that won’t bring him back!” Tucker said. “That means that all of this was for nothing, and that the motherfucker that did this to you wins!”

He had thought it through so many times. He never had any hope of finding Plasmius, and if he tried, it only gave him more time to hurt and kill people.

Danny let out a rattling breath and his eyes stung. He was sure his eye had turned red yet again. “Why can’t you just…” He trailed off not looking at Tucker.

“—Just let you die? No! Because you’re still my friend, and despite what you think, you’re still a good person. You didn’t ask for any of this. Someone else put you in this situation just to hurt you and your family.”

“It’s hopeless,” Danny muttered. “I’ll never be able to find him, much less ever bring him to justice.”

“Maybe not, but me and Sam will stand by you regardless. Isn’t that enough?”

Danny sighed and a few tears escaped his eyes. He sniffled wetly and wiped under his nose. Tucker released his arms and he backed away a step. “I guess it’ll just have to be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve kinda been wondering if other languages in the Tokyo Ghoul universe have different words for the ghoul’s anatomy. Actually I’ve been thinking about that for quite a while, even before I started writing this fic. So I guess I’ve got a question. Should I change the names for things to suit an English speaking setting? Or should I leave it the same? I’m asking now since in the next chapter they’re going to talk about ghoul stuff a bit. I don’t want to stray too far from the source material, but I don’t know. Would it be too different? Is that a weird thing to worry about?

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [a lesson in ethics](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26528692) by [wastefulreverie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wastefulreverie/pseuds/wastefulreverie)




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